Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 31 : 1-2, 5, 11
Blessed is the one whose sin is forgiven, whose iniquity is wiped away. Blessed are those in whom YHVH sees no guilt and in whose spirit is found no deceit.
Then I made known to You my sin and uncovered before You my fault, saying to myself, “To YHVH I will now confess my wrong.” And You, You forgave my sin; You removed my guilt.
Rejoice in YHVH, and be glad, you who are upright; sing and shout for joy, you who are clean of heart.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Leviticus 13 : 1-2, 44-46
YHVH said to Moses and Aaron, “If someone has a boil, an inflammation or a sore on his skin which could develop into leprosy, he must be brought to Aaron the priest, or to one of the priests, his descendants.”
“This means that the man is leprous : he is unclean. The priest shall declare him unclean; he is suffering from leprosy of the head. A person infected with leprosy must wear torn clothing and leave his hair uncombed; he must cover his upper lip and cry, ‘Unclean, unclean.’”
“As long as the disease lasts he must be unclean; and therefore, he must live away from others : he must live outside the camp.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us are called to focus on the love and merciful compassion by which the Lord has shown to each and every one of us, the healing and the wonders He has brought upon us, to our darkened world and wretched state of life. All of us have been so fortunate to have been so beloved by God, and we should really be thankful for all that He had done for us.
In our first reading today, we heard of the reading from the Book of Job in which Job, the servant of God well-known to us for his many unfortunate sufferings, lamented his fate and his misery, all that he had endured due to the test and attacks of the devil who wanted to show God that he could lure this faithful man of God through the many trials and sufferings that he had to endure, all the losses he had received, the humiliation he got.
Yet in the darkest of moments, Job remained faithful to God and did not blame God for all of his misfortunes. Instead, he blamed himself and the circumstances for having placed him in such a predicament, lamenting and wondering why he had to live on and persevere through amidst those difficult moments. But he still kept the faith and held fast to the assurance in God, and he did not fall completely into despair.
This is then we heard afterwards the Psalm used this Sunday, that certainly sounded like a great relief after all the sorrowful and despair-filled words of the Book of Job. The Psalm chosen for this Sunday is filled with messages of hope, of deliverance and salvation, of how God saved His people and restored them all from their fallen state. This was referred to when the Lord rebuilt Jerusalem and brought back the people from their exile, a reference to the Lord’s fulfilled promise that He would not abandon them to their enemies and suffering.
Contextually, the people of Israel had suffered humiliation and great suffering when they were banished from their lands, evicted and forced to endure bitter humiliation when the Assyrians and the Babylonians came over and crushed them, destroyed their cities and conquered their lands. The Temple of God, the centrepiece and heart of the people’s worship and God’s dwelling among His people was destroyed.
Yet, amidst all of that, the Lord promised and reassured His people, the remnants of those who were still faithful to Him, and He fulfilled that promise, restoring the people their lands and the Temple of God was rebuilt and reconsecrated to God. He renewed the Covenant He had made with them and blessed them once again. This was exactly the same as what He did to Job at the end of his sufferings.
God praised Job for his faith and for remaining in His side despite all the efforts the devil had placed in trying to subvert him and putting him against God, hoping that Job would blame God for all of his misfortunes. Job remained true to the Lord to the very end, and although God did chastise him for having doubts and for his despair, but God blessed Job wonderfully and restored all that he had once lost and even gave him double and more of what he had.
It was often said by biblical scholars and historians that Job might not have been a real person, but a metaphor and representation of the people of God. Nonetheless, whether Job was real or not, what was true is that God saved His people, freed them from their troubles and healed them from their sickness, imperfections and shortcomings, and led them into a new life and existence, blessed and filled with His wonderful grace.
God has always cared for all of us even when we have constantly and consistently been disobedient and difficult to handle, like those wayward children who preferred to do things their way and refused to obey their parents. Yet, the Lord was like a patient Father, Who indeed as our loving Father genuinely cared for us despite our rebellion and sins, and wished for us to be saved, to be free from our bondage to sin and to be healed from our corruptions due to those sins and disobedience.
That was why He has given us Jesus, His only Begotten and Most Beloved Son, to be our Saviour, just as we have heard the Lord Himself performing His wonders and miracles in our Gospel passage today, in how He had pity and mercy on all those who came to Him, seeking Him for consolation, healing and guidance. The Lord touched them all, their lives and their hearts and minds, and healed them in body and soul.
And as we heard in that same Gospel passage, the Lord did not allow Himself to be swayed by pride, ambition and desire, for glory or for renown, for wealth or for any other worldly causes. When the disciples came to Him saying that many people were looking for Him and were waiting for Him, He told all of them that they had to move on to other places, for He was sent into the world for all mankind. He would not dwell in a place for long and be tempted by ambition and glory.
The Lord instead devoted Himself and His ministry in reaching out to the marginalised and the poor, those who were often ignored and abandoned, overlooked and forgotten. Do not forget, brothers and sisters in Christ, that the Lord Himself has shown His love and compassion to us, when we were still sinners and He still shows the same compassion and love to us even now when we ourselves are still testing His patience, refusing to follow Him and believe in Him.
When we were in the worst of conditions like Job and the people of Israel were, He did not forget about us, but journeyed with us and showed us the way forward, even when that path forward may indeed be littered with many trials and challenges. God’s love has been made so apparent before us, in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, Who has made Himself available and approachable to all, bridging the gap between us and God, leading us down the path of reconciliation.
When St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians, our second reading today, spoke of the phrase of ‘becoming all things to all people’ and in becoming the ‘slave of everyone else’ he was in fact following in the footsteps of the Lord Himself, Who has made Himself all things to all of us. He has given everything for us, even His life and suffered for us, willingly enduring the punishments meant for us, all so that we can be saved and will not perish due to our sins.
What can we all learn from these then, brothers and sisters in Christ? First of all, we must not allow despair, fear or doubt to cloud our judgment and vision of the path ahead. We need to have faith in God and wholeheartedly believe in Him just like what Job had done, and we need to have more faith and trust in Him, and be more hopeful no matter how difficult things may be for us. Of course, this is easier said than done, but we have to remember that no matter what, the Lord is always by our side, supporting us.
And then, we should also remember that as Christians all of us are called to be ‘all things to all people’ that is to make ourselves available to others, and to show our love to those who need it, those who are unloved and without hope. During this period of the pandemic, when the world are still reeling from its effects and from all the associated problems, it takes great courage for us as Christians to be the bearers of God’s light and hope, to inspire and to touch the lives of others positively. And even when we ourselves are suffering, we can still be happy and show that smile to others who have even lesser or no happiness at all.
Are we willing and able to do that, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we willing to follow in the Lord’s example and the inspiration showed by His innumerable saints, our holy predecessors in faith? Let us all discern this carefully today, brothers and sisters, and see in what way that each and every one of us can contribute, in reaching out to our fellow men and women, especially those who may have been downtrodden, sorrowful and without hope.
Let us all be genuine witnesses of the Lord in our daily living and at every single moments of our lives, that our every actions, words and deeds will glorify God and reveal His love and truth to even more people, that more and more will be saved and share in the joy and the true happiness found in the Lord, our loving God alone. May God bless us all and our good efforts and endeavours, now and always. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 1 : 29-39
At that time, on leaving the synagogue, Jesus went to the home of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. As Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with fever, they immediately told Him about her. Jesus went to her and, taking her by the hand, raised her up. The fever left her and she began to wait on them.
That evening, at sundown, people brought to Jesus all the sick and those who had evil spirits : the whole town was pressing around the door. Jesus healed many who had various diseases, and drove out many demons; but He did not let them speak, for they knew Who He was.
Very early in the morning, before daylight, Jesus went off to a lonely place where He prayed. Simon and the others went out also, searching for Him; and when they found Him, they said, “Everyone is looking for You.” Then Jesus answered, “Let us go to the nearby villages so that I may preach there too; for that is why I came.”
So Jesus set out to preach in all the synagogues throughout Galilee; He also cast out demons.
Liturgical Colour : Green
1 Corinthians 9 : 16-19, 22-23
Because I cannot boast of announcing the Gospel : I am bound to do it. Woe to me, if I do not preach the Gospel! If I preached voluntarily, I could expect my reward, but I have been trusted with this office, against my will. How can I, then, deserve my reward? In announcing the Gospel, I will do it freely, without making use of the rights given to me by the Gospel.
So, feeling free with everybody, I have become everybody’s slave, in order to gain a greater number. To the weak, I made myself weak, to win the weak. So, I made myself all things to all people, in order to save, by all possible means, some of them. This, I do, for the Gospel, so that I, too, have a share of it.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 146 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6
Alleluia! How good it is to sing to our God, how sweet and befitting, to praise Him! YHVH rebuilds Jerusalem; He gathers the exiles of Israel.
He heals their broken hearts and binds their wounds. He determines the number of stars; He calls each of them by name.
The Lord is great, and mighty in power; His wisdom is beyond measure. YHVH lifts up the humble, but casts the wicked to the ground.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Job 7 : 1-4, 6-7
Man’s life on earth is a thankless job, his days are those of a mercenary. Like a slave he longs for the shade of evening, like a hireling waiting for his wages. Thus I am allotted months of boredom and nights of grief and misery. In bed I say, “When shall the day break?” On rising, I think, “When shall evening come?” and I toss restless till dawn.
My days pass swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, heading without hope for their end. My life is like wind, you well know it, o God; never will I see happiness again.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we listened to the readings of the Sacred Scripture, we are all presented with the assurance from God that if we focus our attention on Him, put our faith in Him and entrust ourselves to Him, in the end we have nothing to worry about, and we should not allow worldly concerns and temptations to distract us, or worse still, drag us away from the path towards redemption.
In order to understand properly the readings of the Scripture today, which may not be so easily evident and understandable, we have to understand first the context of how they were written and recorded. First of all, regarding the first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy in which Moses addressed the people of Israel and promised them the coming of the great Prophet that would come from their midst, he was in fact speaking about the future coming of Christ.
Why is that so? That is because, Christ, our Lord and Saviour was born among the Israelites, as the Heir of king David no less, and He was the One promised by the Lord and prophesied by the many prophets, and that included even Moses and his proclamation, that even all those years ago, before the Israelites even reached the Promised Land and established themselves, God had begun to reveal His plan of salvation to them.
And most importantly, as we heard in our Psalm today as well, the mention of Massah and Meribah was significant as these two places were especially infamous in the history of the Exodus, as it was at Massah and Meribah that the people of God explicitly rebelled against the Lord and refused to obey Him, complaining that they did not have enough to eat and how their lives as slaves back in Egypt were better than when they were then at, in the desert.
All of these happened even though the Lord had generously taken very good care of them, providing them with food to eat, with the manna from heaven and the flocks of large birds daily along the entire journey, as well as water to drink in the middle of the mostly dry, barren and lifeless desert. The Lord had loved His people very much, and yet they had rejected Him and rose up against Him, again and again.
We also heard Moses mentioning about Mount Horeb, the place where the Israelites had come to gather and make a Covenant between them and God. That was also the place where God established His Law and gave them the Ten Commandments through Moses. However, I am sure we also remember how at that very moment, the Israelites had also distrusted the Lord yet another time, when they turned to a golden calf idol as they thought that the Lord had abandoned them when Moses went up the mountain for forty days to receive God’s Law.
We have seen how faithless the people of God had been, many times throughout their history, even through the relatively short period of the Exodus. Many of those were caused by their failure to resist the temptations and pressure to crave the desires of the world, the temptations of pleasures and money, the desires of the flesh among many other things. That was why they turned away from God.
Finally, in our Gospel passage today we heard the Lord Jesus, His works and preaching, as the fulfilment of God’s promises and the One Whom Moses and the other prophets had mentioned. And when men possessed by the evil spirits came to Him, the evil spirits even recognised the Lord and proclaimed Him as the Holy One of God, the Son of God and Saviour of the world. And the irony is how those evil spirits recognised and proclaimed the Lord when many among the people to whom the Lord had taught and performed miracles still refused to believe in Him and doubted Him.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore today, as we listened through the Scripture passages, we are all called to reflect on the nature and importance of our faith in our daily lives. Have we been truly faithful to God and have we trusted Him wholly all these time? These are some things that we really should spend time pondering on, and we need to consider how we can grow ever more in our faith and commitment.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we continue to progress in life, let us all be exemplary in our actions and in how we reach out to one another, to share our faith with our fellow brothers and sisters. If we ourselves have not been truly faithful then how can we expect others to be faithful as well? The Lord is calling on all of us to turn towards Him with faith, and to be true and genuine witnesses of our Christian faith, our belief in Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all.
Let us all be filled with God’s grace and love; and let us do our best in our every moments in life to lead one another towards the salvation in God. May the Lord give us the strength and the courage to continue walking ever more faithfully in His path from now on. May He bless all of our works and our interactions, that we may call ever more souls from the darkness of this world and into the eternal light and glory in God. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 1 : 21b-28
At that time, Jesus taught in the synagogue on the Sabbath day. The people were astonished at the way He taught, for He spoke as One having authority, and not like the teachers of the Law.
It happened that, a man with an evil spirit was in their synagogue, and he shouted, “What do You want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know Who You are : You are the Holy One of God.”
Then Jesus faced him and said with authority, “Be silent, and come out of this man!” The evil spirit shook the man violently and, with a loud shriek, came out of him. All the people were astonished, and they wondered, “What is this? With what authority He preaches! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey Him!”
And Jesus’ fame spread throughout all the country of Galilee.
Liturgical Colour : Green
1 Corinthians 7 : 32-35
I would like you to be free from anxieties. He who is not married is concerned about the things of the Lord and how to please the Lord. While he who is married is taken up with the things of the world and how to please his wife, and he is divided in his interests.
Likewise, the unmarried woman and the virgin are concerned with the service of the Lord, to be holy in body and spirit. The married woman, instead, worries about the things of the world and how to please her husband.
I say this for your own good. I do not wish to lay traps for you, but to lead you to a beautiful life, entirely united with the Lord.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 